


Tokens of Our Past

by brevityis



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Euthanasia, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Off-screen Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brevityis/pseuds/brevityis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim notices a silver chain always playing peek-a-boo on Bones' neck. Bones notices him noticing. </p><p>(Warning: Mentions of off-screen, non-major-character suicide, and euthanasia. For that, and for McCoy's potty mouth, it is rated Teen.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tokens of Our Past

**Author's Note:**

> This was a quick fic inspired by the Daily Captain & Daily Doctor post for September 15, 2012 over at Jim_and_bones on LJ. ([ Members-Only actual page](http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/695526.html))
> 
> It was originally posted there, but now that I have an AO3, I thought I'd share it to the wider audience.
> 
> [ The actual photo which inspired it.](http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx245/karla2_03/Captures/jaimie%20r/caesar/dc2k/dck2/151001769.jpg) Note the tiny silver chain.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what, kid?” McCoy asked irritably, leaning away as Jim leaned closer. 

“ _That_.” Jim’s hand tugged at his collar, catching on the silver chain around his neck. Instantly the doctor’s hand went up and applied very specific pressure to Jim’s hand to make it let go. 

“ _That_ is none of your damn business.” 

~*~

He should have known Jim wouldn’t let it go. One night when he’d been sleeping, the asshole tried to sneakily pull the necklace up high enough to see. Leonard woke up to a shadowy figure less than two feet from his face. The doctor’s dermal regenerator got use that night thanks to his instantaneous reaction.

~*~

The necklace wasn’t something Leonard had been hiding, not at the start. But Jim’s all-too-keen interest made Leonard take extra caution that he had a shirt on in Jim’s presence. 

Most of the time. 

Then there was the day they went to the beach. 

“Aren’t you going to get in the water?” Leonard cracked an eye from where he was lying contently spread out on his towel, still wearing his t-shirt. It wasn’t exactly a hot day by Georgia standards. 

“Not unless it’s above fucking freezing.” 

“Pretty sure it’s liquid there, Doc.” Jim teased. 

Bones snorted and rolled his eyes. He sat up, finally feeling warm enough to strip off his shirt. In the same motion, he flopped over onto his front.

He only recognized the ploy to get a better look at the necklace when he heard Jim cuss softly behind him. The doctor grinned, pillowing his head on his arms.

~*~

It was some six months after Jim had discovered the necklace that the kid finally got a good look at it. They went out drinking one night; out of the cadet reds that Leonard swore always tried to choke him. Without that noose around his neck, the doctor wasn’t about to button his shirt up all the way. But in deference to the fact that Jim had an unhealthy interest in his necklace, he only undid the top two.

At least, that was the plan at the start of the night. By one o’clock Bones was feeling pleasantly tingly. And warm. Very, very warm. He undid another couple of buttons on the shirt without thinking twice.

Jim challenged him to a friendly round of pool, and as he leant over to line up a shot, the whole length of the chain slid out of the open front of the shirt. On it, a thin gray band, with traces of letters around the edge. McCoy didn’t notice until he stood up from sinking a ball into the center pocket. The metal clicked against a button, and the doctor hastily tucked it away again, redoing the fourth button that let it slip free without a word to Jim on the matter. 

The rest of the evening he was quieter than usual.

~*~

After the bar incident, Jim gave up asking about the necklace, much to McCoy’s relief. It took until their second year at the academy before Bones finally gave an answer to him voluntarily. 

That didn’t mean he did it sober.

It had been a shitty shift at the hospital. They’d had a kid come in D.O.A. Suicide. Leonard hated suicides. That was why when Jim got back to their dorm from weapons training he found Leonard already half a bottle into some cheap whiskey. “Whoa, Bones, what’s with the hard liquor on a weeknight?” 

“Fuck off, Jim.” The doctor muttered, leaning forward to rest his forehead on his hand. 

“Yeah, no can do. What’s up?” Apparently Jim knew him too well now to take him seriously. Dammit. 

McCoy shrugged, but straightened up and undid the clasp at his neck that held the silver chain closed. Pulling it out, he dangled the ring on it in front of Jim’s face. Up close it was obviously not a wedding band, the way most people assumed. “You know why I wear this, kid?” The metal was too thin for a wedding band, the sides not rounded into a curve. It was clearly a piece of a larger, hollow metal something. “It reminds me no matter how shitty life gets you gotta keep livin’ it.” 

Jim looked confused, and McCoy couldn’t blame him. “My daddy had Pyrrhoneuritis.” The blue eyes cleared a little bit. “Cure came out three weeks after he died.” McCoy looked away, but kept his hand extended with the ring dangling from it. “Three weeks after I used the hypo this came from to help him die.”

To his credit, Jim didn’t even try to say anything right away. Didn’t even try to leave. Then, to McCoy’s shock, a warm hand closed over his own, pressing the ring against his fingers. “I’m listening.”


End file.
